SMITHFIELD -- The past two weeks have been among the most suspenseful in the red-hot history of affordable housing.
The Zoning Board of Review at its last session failed to muster a quorum that would have decided the town's policy toward the highly controversial fast-track housing plans.
Instead, both opponents and proponents were left dangling. The board plans to try again tomorrow night. Jodi Etchells, founder of Esmond Concerned Citizens, yesterday urged her advocacy group to turn out in force when the panel convenes at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall. About 50 opponents of affordable-housing showed up for the abortive meeting on Feb. 25.
Tomorrow, it appears that the board, acting on an expected legal opinion by Town Solicitor Edmund L. Alves Jr., will select one of two paths:
Allow the several affordable-housing proposals already on file to continue making their way through the regulatory system.
Declare that a recent moratorium enacted by the General Assembly kills them off.
Alves has not tipped his hand on what his advice to the panel will be. If his opinion pushes the panel toward the rejection end of this legal seesaw, Smithfield would become the first community in Rhode Island to bar fast-track housing projects. However, such a thumbs-down approach by the board is likely to provoke a court appeal by the affected developers.
Whatever the board's decision, tomorrow's public gathering is shaping up as a marathon. Chairman George D. McKinnon said last month that all of the items on the agenda of the failed meeting -- 17 of them, a heavy load despite the routine nature of most -- would be carried over to tomorrow night's meeting.
The developers whose housing plans were carried over from last month are:
Churchill & Banks, a Providence developer, which wishes to build 336 apartment units in 15 buildings on Putnam Pike on a lot now occupied by the defunct Club 44. If constructed it would be the first high-density development in Smithfield.
Armand Cortellesso, DBA Patriot Homes, who wants to build 60 single-family homes in a project called High Ridge Estates, which would occupy more than 70 acres bounded by Ridge Road, Cross Street and Stillwater Road.
Both developers had sought Zoning Board approval under an amendment to the state's housing law that allowed commercial builders to bypass local zoning restrictions while qualifying for government subsidies. They were able to do so because they satisfied a state requirement that 20 percent of the housing units would be reserved for tenants whose incomes met federal guidelines for low- and moderate-income housing.
Opponents of such fast-track housing, who contend that the amendment has stripped them of the protection of property values afforded by restrictive zoning, hope that the moratorium torpedoes the development armada. Affordable-housing proposals have affected not only Smithfield but communities throughout Rhode Island.
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